Companies choose to sack IT staff after network outages

A fifth of large companies are sacking IT staff following network outages, according to research.

Antony Savvas
March 7, 2014

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A fifth of large companies are sacking IT staff following network outages, according to research.

A survey of mid-to-large companies in the US, Canada and UK found that 82 percent had experienced some type of network downtime, caused by IT personnel making errors when configuring changes to the core of the network.

The survey found that one-fifth of all network downtime in 2013 was caused by core errors, with 80 percent of companies questioned losing revenue as a result.

The average financial loss was $140,00 (£83,800) per incident, with the financial sector losing an average of $540,360 per incident.

As a result, one-fifth of firms fired IT staff, with the percentage of sackings higher in the natural resources and utilities and telecoms sector, where a third sacked staff following downtime caused by network change errors.

Avaya commissioned the research among 210 IT heads at companies employing over 250 staff.